I am attempting to start using WDS to deploy images to new laptops that we purchased. I have been having a time with FOG and Clonezilla, so I decided to do it the MS way and use WDS, which I have never done before, but realize that perhaps I probably should have been all along.

Anyhow, I have my Win7Pro machine built, drivers installed, minimal programs (NO antivirus at this point, which is important in a moment).

I have a WinPE bootable USB that I intend on sending the imagex command from. I have tested and this works.

HOWEVER, I am having the hardest time getting Sysprep to work properly. Meaning, it goes the the Sysprep process (including generalize) just fine; however, on reboot I am unable to get Windows started due to the "Windows could not finish configuring the system.." error that seems to be a bug, but no one has a definitive answer for.

Problem is, since I cannot image with FOG or Clonezilla, testing this has become a nightmare. If I invoke sysprep generalize (after I have installed everything in audit mode) and it fails, I have no other option but to fully rebuild a machine again (at this point it only takes me about 30 miutes, but still!). I realize now that it is probably a better idea to build the master machine in a Virtual Machine so that I can use the snapshot feature, but that is beside the point currently.

So, my question is this - if I use imagex to copy the image BEFORE invoking sysprep (having only been working in audit mode at this point). Could I use WDS to reinstall the image just at this point before and it actually work?

On a side note, the only question I would have regarding using the Virtual environment for the master PC is how would that take into account the drivers?

Yes, building the master image in a VM has saved me many head aches and is probably the best way to go. If you still build on hardware ,I've found that adding the drivers after the build process will prevent the error too. That way you can keep the image a little cleaner. I use the PNPutil command to automatically add the drivers as needed after the image has been laid down.

Yes, building the master image in a VM has saved me many head aches and is probably the best way to go. If you still build on hardware ,I've found that adding the drivers after the build process will prevent the error too. That way you can keep the image a little cleaner. I use the PNPutil command to automatically add the drivers as needed after the image has been laid down.

Yeah, I have implemented that hotfix, though it is weird you have to go through hoops to get ahold of it.

I am not familiar with PNPutil command, but I can look into it. Needless to say, over the past few weeks I have gotten a hard course in Deployment! Learned a lot though, which in the end is a bonus. Heck, if things never went wrong, I don't think I would learn anything! LOL

we have had the same issues and it came down to having another account on the computer. one other than administrator i mean. Parsing all the error logs and everything, i found that the user called Admin that i created on win 7 install was the root of the problem. log in as administrator, blow out that "extraneous" profile and it should fix the problem. Also i have heard that if you start the computer in safe mode the very first time after the sysprep/reimage it will error saying it can't use safe mode then start up regularly it will sometimes bypass the error and allow it to finish.